"Safe"

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg
Directed by Michael Grossman


In which Book is seriously wounded when a transfer of smuggled goods goes wrong, just as Simon and River are abducted by fanatically religious hill folk...

Synopsis - Analysis - Memorable Quotes - Observations


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Synopsis

As the episode begins, it is a typical night in the highly secured Tam mansion, during the early years of the war between the Alliance and the Independents. In the spacious living room, a young Simon sits on the couch studying, while a very young River pretends to be fighting Independents. River jokes that their platoon will have to resort to cannibalism because they were cut off…by Independents using dinosaurs…while at the same time commenting on the errors in Simon’s textbook.

Gabriel Tam enters, and Simon bugs him about getting a dedicated source box to the Alliance network. Gabriel disapproves, given the trash that filters through the network, but his wife has already relented, so he can’t say no. But he expects Simon to repay this kindness by becoming a brilliant doctor.

Back to the present. Simon struggles with a raving River, who doesn’t want to go into the infirmary for tests. She refers to someone digging needles into her eyes, in between the cursing and the tossing about of things. She calms when she sees Mal walk in, but that doesn’t suit Mal quite enough.

He’s more than a little worried that a raving River will spook the cattle (from “Shindig”), and that could damage the goods. When Simon gets a little testy over Mal’s less than generous attitude, Mal makes it clear that he’s not a baby-sitter, and Simon had better clamp down on his sister.

Sometime later, Serenity sets down on the planet of Jiangyin. As the ship comes to ground, some hill folk notice, and begin preparing to see to their own needs. As soon as the landing’s done, Jayne herds the cattle out into a makeshift corral, which Zoe, Wash, and Book have been constructing.

River, of course, takes to talking to the cows, something that spurs Mal to tell Simon to keep River out of the way. After all, with this kind of business, things are best when they go smoothly…and River is seldom smooth. Mal suggests that Simon take River for a walk. Simon resists, but Mal makes it clear that it’s not a suggestion. Still, he assures Simon that they won’t leave without them.

Meanwhile, Inara and Kaylee browse through the general store of the nearest town. Inara notes how nearly every general store on every backwater planet has the same knick-knacks for sale. Kaylee likes them, though, especially some of the fancier looking plates. She wonders if they would make a nice gift, and it doesn’t take long for Inara to understand that Kaylee’s talking about Simon.

Just then, Simon and River walk in, and Simon’s still in a foul mood after his run-in with Mal. Simon is just about as patient with River’s wide-eyed wandering, and when he spies the plates that Kaylee found so alluring, he dismisses them as worthless, and goes on to call Serenity much the same. Of course, one doesn’t do that with Kaylee, especially since she takes it to apply to her as well. She runs off very upset, and Inara goes after her, flashing an angry look at Simon in the process. And since Simon is so distracted with his ranting, he manages to lose River.

Back at the corral, Zoe informs Mal that their contacts, the Grange brothers, have arrived. The Granges complain about the cattle being too thin and the fact that they’ve been branded, but Mal covers the bases with ease. It’s clear that the price will have to be negotiated, but that’s the normal song and dance. But Book notes that the Granges are acting a little jumpy…especially when they hear something in the nearby brush.

After awkwardly attempting to look inconspicuous as several lawmen walk by, Simon runs off in the direction that he thinks River has gone. After passing through a dark alley, he finds River standing on a large gazebo, surrounded by people dancing to lively music. Back at the corral, at that very moment, money is about to exchange hands when the lawmen come to arrest the Granges. Mal and his crew wind up caught in the ensuing firefight, while back at the gazebo, River begins dancing with total abandon with the strangers.

As the lawmen finally bring the Granges down, with a little help from Mal’s crew, they discover that Book has been shot in the left shoulder. At the same moment, River stumbles in her dance, her expression startled. As Mal and Jayne bend down to check on Book, a couple of the hill folk pull a bag over Simon’s head and drag him away.

Jayne and Mal carry Book onto Serenity on a stretcher, and take him to the infirmary. As Zoe and Mal try to do some simple battlefield triage. But very quickly, Book goes into convulsions. As they manage to get him stabilized, Mal sends Wash out to find Simon.

Of course, Simon’s being herded by the two hill folk, despite his best efforts to resist. He remembers a time just after River went to the Academy, when he presented several of River’s letters to his parents, insistent that there was some coded message contained in the words. But the Tams just think River is playing her usual games, and that Simon is being paranoid. Suddenly, in the present, River jumps out in front of Simon, as if playing a game. She’s easily caught as well.

Meanwhile, Wash returns from town, and informs everyone that Simon is missing. Kaylee is distraught, but Jayne just figures that they finally up and ran. But Wash informs them that a posting in the sheriff’s office mentions that people are snatched by hill folk, and they put the pieces together. Mal decides that the best option is to leave, so they don’t lose Book as well. As Serenity takes off, Simon looks on, stunned that they would leave without him and River.

Shortly, as Zoe does her best to keep Book alive and conscious, Mal argues with Wash over their best options for medical help. But Inara comes to give them a more reasonable option: the Alliance ship not far from Jiangyin. Meanwhile, Jayne rifles through Simon and River’s belongings, taking what he finds valuable and leaving everything else. Kaylee stops by to see Book, and laments over his condition and how easily Mal left Simon and River behind.

Back on the planet, the hill folk bring Simon and River into their village, where they are quickly escorted to the local “hospital”. Several sick children are inside, along with the teacher, Doralee. Simon wonders if there’s been some sort of sickness, but Doralee explains that they simply had need of a doctor.

Soon enough, and too soon for the crew, they approach the Alliance cruiser Magellan. Mal, Zoe, and Jayne bring Book into the cargo bay, and then allow the Alliance people to enter. Mal explains that they’re just requesting aid, and give them an honest if somewhat paraphrased account of how Book was wounded. The Alliance Commander is about to deny them aid when Book suddenly asks the commander to check his ident-card. One look is enough; Book is given very special treatment, and Mal and the others are given no trouble.

Back on the planet, Simon helps Doralee with some basic first aid. Doralee notes how River is a little odd, as she tries to talk to a little girl. The girl, it seems, has been mute ever since an incident two years earlier. Doralee tries to convince Simon that the village would be a good place for River, but Simon doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to entertain staying with people who forced them to be there.

As the crew of Serenity wonders over Book’s apparent connection to the Alliance, Simon notices that River and the little girl are gone. As he runs to find her, River comes in, holding a bunch of berries in her scooped-up skirt. As they eat the berries, River explains to Simon that she knows that he left his old life because of her, only to find her “broken”. She promises to get better.

Doralee enters the room, with the little girl trailing. As it’s late, Doralee tells them that there’s a house set aside for them, with everything they need inside. River remarks that the little girl survived her mother trying to kill her and her sister. Doralee confirms that it’s true, and assumes that River got the girl to talk about it. But when River says that the little girl doesn’t talk, Doralee starts stepping back in fear…and calling River a witch!

Flashback to just before Simon rescued River from the Academy. Simon is escorted to his father by a guard. Gabriel Tam is furious, since he had to leave dinner to come down to the detention center and get his son released. Simon explains that he was in the blackout zone trying to find someone who could help River, and he’s going to keep trying until he finds someone. Gabriel makes it clear that if Simon gets in trouble again, he’ll be disowned.

Back to the present. Doralee rings a bell to rouse everyone from their beds, telling them all that River’s a witch. Simon disputes it, and the village Patron asks River if she’s a witch, and if she knows what it means for him to be Patron. She says that she does…and continues to tell how he rose to that status by killing the last Patron. As expected, that goes over extremely well, and the Patron orders the village to burn River at the stake.

Back on Serenity, in the infirmary, Mal explains to Book that the Alliance patched him up. Mal wonders what really happened, but Book refrains from answering. Jayne remarks to Zoe that business is going to be a lot easier without worrying over the two fugitives. Mal overhears, and reluctantly agrees.

Back on the planet, Simon tries to convince the village to take his life instead. But the Patron insists that River must die. Simon screams at the villagers, blaming their ignorance and insanity should River be killed. But his words have no effect. Recognizing that it’s the end, Simon steps up on the platform with River, who comments it’s time to go.

Sure enough, Serenity roars overhead, with Jayne hanging from the cargo bay, aiming his trusty Vera at several of the hill folk. Mal and Zoe stride into town behind the crowd, informing them that they’ve come for their property. The Patron tries to intimidate Mal into backing off, but Mal is fairly confident in the strength of his position. He orders the Patron to cut River down.

Shortly, back on Serenity, Jayne quickly returns all of Simon’s things before the doctor can notice anything was missing. After checking on Book, Simon catches up with Mal and asks him why he came back from them, when he doesn’t even like them. Mal simply answers that they’re on his crew…and that’s all there is to say about it.

As the crew sits down for a meal, everyone is happy to be together...at least for this one moment.


Analysis

Just as “Firefly” begins to move past the chaos of the mismatched airing order of the first seven episodes, the extent of the damage done to normal plot and character development has become clear. The almost schizophrenic nature of the relationships between characters starts to make a little more sense, and the huge hole left by FOX when they decided to postpone airing the pilot looms larger than ever.

Setting aside the not-so-small matter of the pilot for a moment, it’s clear that we’re supposed to see certain relationships form over time. Perhaps the most obvious example is the slowly simmering relationship between Simon and Kaylee. It makes much more sense for “Jaynestown” to come sometime after this episode, because as it stands now, there are comments made that never seem to get followed up upon.

But perhaps more importantly, this episode is part of a stack of episodes devoted to exploring the pasts of many of the characters, and the progression of those episodes appears to have been carefully considered. After the general introduction to the crew and their universe in “The Train Job” and “Bushwhacked”, the central relationship between Mal and Inara was to be highlighted in “Shindig”. This also would have served to introduce Kaylee’s dreamy take on life, and the strength of Wash and Zoe’s relationship.

This episode would have naturally come after “Shindig”, as it does now, but it would have begun rounding out the early contentious relationship between Mal and Simon. Even without seeing the pilot, it’s obvious why there would be some bad blood there. This is also the next step in Kaylee’s interest in Simon, and the first look at Book’s background. More to the point, this episode focuses strongly on Simon and River.

Had the episodes aired as intended, “Our Mrs. Reynolds” and “Jaynestown” would have been next. This would have focused on Mal and Jayne, and taken Kaylee and Simon’s budding relationship another step forward. Finally, “Out of Gas” would have finished out the early run by filling in some of the history of Serenity and forging the group mentality. By that point, all of the characters would have been gotten some exploration, directly or indirectly, and the group dynamic would have been organically evolved going into the next stage of the story.

As it stands, this is still true, but the effect is far less cohesive. Characters vary wildly in terms of how they interact, and small details don’t quite mesh. It sounds ludicrous that Simon would joke about missing out on the one serious wound since he arrived on Serenity after “Out of Gas”, and there’s no reason for Mal and Simon to still be wary of each other. Several scenes in “Jaynestown” make much more sense after some of the events in this episode.

All of which is very important to consider when looking at this episode, because without that perspective, charges of incompetence or sloppiness could be leveled at the writing staff. There are still some plot conveniences, but overall, this episode does a nice job of taking Simon and River and giving them some solid background.

While it hasn’t been a secret that Simon came from a privileged background, this episode makes it clear that his family was highly influential in Alliance social circles. It’s likely that Simon’s career was at least partially fostered by his family’s reputation, and it sounds like River was sent to a top academy for the Alliance. This fits Simon’s discomfort with living on the edge of civilization, since much of what he grew up with has been ripped away by the Alliance experiments on River.

River’s development has been rather hard to track, since the episode order has made her periods of lucidity and withdrawal even more haphazard than intended. Still, we get solid evidence of her speculated psychic abilities in this episode. There’s also a closer look, though obscure, at her experiences at the academy. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the Alliance was using standardized testing on the general populace to identify children with possible psychic abilities. Identify them, offer them highly prized slots in top academies, and then conduct your experiments with none the wiser.

Also introduced in this episode is some kind of connection to the Alliance in Book’s past. This is highly intriguing, because his reasons for joining Serenity have never been explained. It has to be something significant, given that Book’s identity was enough to give Mal and his crew a clean run on and off an Alliance cruiser, even with the standing alert on Simon and River mentioning a Firefly-class transport.

While there could be any number of reasons behind that connection, there are some strong possibilities for Book’s decision to come to Mal and Serenity. (And without seeing the pilot episode, the audience may be missing information.) What if Book had been instrumental in some military or intelligence capacity in giving the Alliance a victory at the Battle of Serenity Valley? Book might have reacted badly to what happened during that battle, and might have sought out personal redemption through religion and personally helping the man who symbolizes the fruits of his efforts.

While the episode was well done, the decision to not air the pilot episode and to run the episodes out of order hurt this episode greatly. Thankfully, it would seem that future episodes will be run in the order that the writers intended. But should the series end up facing cancellation, one will have to wonder if the confusion caused by the incompetence of the network is the cause.


Memorable Quotes

GABRIEL: “I will not have it in my house. But since your mother’s already ordered you one, I guess I should give up the fantasy that this is my house…”

MAL: “So…she’s added cussing and hurling about of things to her repertoire. She really is a progidy.”

MAL: “No, but in case you hadn’t noticed, her voice kinda carries. We’re two miles above ground and they can probably hear her down there. Soon as we unload, she can holler until our ears bleed. Although I would take it as a kindness if she didn’t.”
RIVER: “The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.”
MAL: “See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like…”

ZOE: “Next time we smuggle stock, let’s make it something smaller.”
WASH: “Yeah, we should start dealing in those black-market beagles!”

RIVER: “They weren’t cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see the sky and they remember what they are…”
MAL: “Is it bad that what she said made perfect sense to me?”

JAYNE: (mocking-like) “Dear Diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy….today, we were kidnapped by hill folk never to be seen again. It was the best day ever!”

ZOE: “Captain will come up with a plan.”
KAYLEE: “That’s good. Right?”
ZOE: “Possibly you’re not recalling some of his previous plans…”

BOOK: “I am a Shepherd. Folks like a man of God.”
MAL: “No, they don’t. Men of God make everyone feel guilty and judged.”

PATRON: “This is a holy cleansing! You cannot think to thwart God’s will!”
MAL: “Y’all see the man hanging out of the spaceship with the really big gun? Now I’m not saying you weren’t easy to find. It was kinda out of our way, and he didn’t want to come in the first place. Man’s looking to kill some folk. So really it’s his will y’all should worry about thwarting…”

SIMON: “So finally a decent wound on this ship, and I miss out. I’m sorry.”
MAL: “Well, you were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.”


Observations

- Nice to see some clips from the unaired pilot before the episode, especially since that information was important to the continuity.

- Did we really have to see the skinning of the rabbit? The flaying of Warren on “Buffy” was less disturbing…

- So Jayne thinks cow patties are hilarious…good to know…

- Was anyone else ready to reach into the screen and throttle Simon for talking like that to our Kaylee?

- Lots more of the slang Mandarin this week, and yet another variation on the extent of the faux-Western slang. Shouldn’t they be more consistent than this?

- I don’t think Simon could have looked more suspicious when the officers walked by if he tried!

- Interesting sound effects during the gunfight…either the foley artists were asleep at the wheel in post-production, or those guns aren’t firing bullets in the standard manner.

- Nice touch to have River figure out the steps of the dance, and then improvise, based on breaking it down logically first…very in keeping with the character as revealed thus far.

- Oh, and wonderful interplay between the dancing and the gunfight…somewhat reminiscent of the famous scene from “Cabaret”…

- I swear, some of those close-ups of Kaylee just make you wish you could sign up on Serenity, don’t they?

- The scene where Jayne rifles through Simon’s belongings is just plain hilarious!

- I love the expressions on the faces of the crew as they approach the Magellan…

- This is why I had to move from southwest Virginia back to my wonderful Yankee stomping grounds…fanatic religious fundamentalists. I actually know what it’s like to be called a witch in public, though without the excess of the fire and stakes and what not…

- Nice how Mal comments on men of God making people feel guilty and judged, just as a supposed man of God prepares to slow-roast two of his crew!

- Who else thought Jayne would shoot over a stolen dinner roll?

Overall, this episode provided a great deal of background on Simon and River, and the relationship between them. Also, we finally got a glimpse into Book’s background. The episode suffers slightly from being aired after some episodes meant to air after it, but that doesn’t detract from the episode itself.

I give it a 7/10.


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